Prior to the City Assembly session on which Strategy for the Development of Culture in Novi Sad should be adopted, the relevant Member of the City Council, Mr. Dalibor Rožić, has met with his predecessors to discuss the crucial document in this field. Barring in mind that the Strategy is the result of years of activities of the City Department of Culture and the efforts to improve state of culture in Novi Sad, and the document represents the direction of further development in the next ten years, former members of the City Council for Culture Radovan Jokić, Andrej Bursać, Vladimir Kopicl, Milanka Gvoić and Vanja Vučenović were invited to the meeting.
– Forming the Strategy Team, which brought the process successfully to the very end, was preceded by numerous and good actions implemented by my colleagues, and the final credits belong to them. It is very important and useful to hear their opinions, mostly in order to send a message to the public that the development of culture, one of the most important social areas, will not depend on the individual human resources and socio-political situation of the moment – said Dalibor Rozic.
Participants of the meeting agreed that it is very important for Novi Sad, which on September 9th submits the Application as a candidate for the European Capital of Culture 2021, to have this Strategy as a part of Application, to which they all contributed. We remind that the initiative for candidacy for the ECoC was launched in 2011 when the Assembly of the City of Novi Sad made a decision on the establishment and appointment of members of the Organizing Committee for the implementation of these initiatives.
Current and former members of the City Council for Culture expressed their satisfaction with the persistence in implementation of this long-term, common goal whose realization would achieve a historic result in a culture of Novi Sad.
The former leaders of the City Department of Culture appraised the vision of the development included in the Strategy, as well as it advocates for the right to diversity as an important factor of creating the city’s identity, providing equal status to independent cultural scene, cultural amateurs, citizens, and any specific groups, with the respect of freedom of expression.
– We want everyone to participate in the creation of identity of our Novi Sad, which happens through a cultural and artistic creativity, to be partners in this process and that the Serbian Athens receives new quality dimension and serve as an example and inspiration to others – said Dalibor Rozic and thanked to his predecessors for the great contribution to the development of culture in Novi Sad.
